We had intended to head north from Nanaimo pretty much directly (with overnight anchorages, obviously) to Desolation Sound, but events have conspired to keep us in Garden Bay for at least another day.
First, yesterday was a pretty rough crossing, at least in part. The Strait of Georgia lived up to its reputation for roughness as we cut across the western half... short, sharp chop and gusty winds had us burying our nose in saltwater and Mandy heaving over the side despite medicative precautions. We were both exhausted by the end of the day and in no mood to get up and press on immediately this morning.
Second, this morning was Saturday; yesterday, then, was Friday, and that makes it a weekend, and we inadvertently put ourselves on the same track as hordes of vacationers from Vancouver and Nanaimo, who showed up shortly after we did and turned the bay into a big parking lot. A lot of these folks have the same general plan that we do, which is to overnight here and head on to Desolation Sound... that means they'll be at anchorages between here and there today, and up there through the weekend. If we wait a day, we should be able to find relatively open places as we work our way north along behind them.
Third, I noticed the bilge pump coming on more frequently than usual yesterday after we started the engine, and when I opened the engine compartment for inspection, my suspicions were confirmed... the muffler had sprung a leak again. I pulled it this morning to repair it, and sure enough, there was a new hole, adjacent, of course, to the part already fixed. I laid some liquid metal into it and will let it cure today; hopefully it will be okay tomorrow. I suspect that I botched the job... the liquid metal filler stuff sets up much faster than I expected and I didn't get it laid into the hole as deeply as I was thinking. But there's no sense in putting more in if that layer won't hold, so I will just have to put it all back together and see if it blows again. If so, I'll get an opportunity to do it right, although I'm not looking forward to it. The weather is too nice to be all jammed up in the lazarette messing with hose clamps.
Anyway, we wanted to take a crack at it while we are still only a day's sail away from major ports like Nanaimo or Vancouver, which could still fix us up if I really botched things.
Finally, our anniversary is tomorrow, and Mandy wanted a nice night out, and this is probably the last place anything of that sort will be easily possible. So, she'll have it a night early, assuming we can get in at the Garden Bay Hotel, which is reputed to have an excellent spread.
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2 comments:
Damn. Sorry to hear about the muffler. I thought when we patched it before that once something like that starts to corrode from the inside that it's pretty well shot. I expected it would last longer than this, though. At least through the season. If you get me the measurements for length, diameter, and hose size I can keep checking at 2nd wave when I stop in to check for outboards. Also... if you can get a length of pipe that fits the hose diameter you might stick that in instead. It would be louder, sure, but at least it wouldn't leak. Just my $.02...
The rest of the season was all I was hoping for out of it. The hole popped right along the seam where the weld ended; I think it was probably just weak already, and weakened further by the welding process, so that's where it gave out. We would have had to go all the way around the edge to keep that from happening somewhere, I imagine. In that this paste doesn't execute any violence against the existing metal, I have somewhat higher hopes that it will avoid a similar catastrophe.
Another length of hose is my plan C if this doesn't work out for the rest of the summer (B is to just live with the leak, if I can keep it to a manageable rate). I have pretty much decided against going with a used muffler, though, since there's really no way of knowing what the internal condition is. I haven't priced new ones but imagine I'll have to pony up for one before next season.
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